Notre Dame winning Kelly's way

Familiarity with coach's demands could have bred contempt; for Irish it shaped mutual admiration society

November 22, 2012|By Brian Hamilton, Chicago Tribune reporter

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly during the second half of his team's 38-0 win over Wake Forest. (Nuccio DiNuzzo/Tribune Photo)

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — During the once-upon-a-time period in which Wednesday practices were open for media viewing, Brian Kelly yelled a lot.

In this Notre Dame's coach did not distinguish himself. A lot of coaches yell. And while the grainy, stabbing invective was spine-straightening or sort of amusing to observers or both, it was just a variation on the norm. It was 2010, Kelly's first season with the Irish, and this was how he would get his guys to do things his way.

Since, even though practices long ago were shuttered, one can assume Kelly has yelled some more. His fuschia-faced sideline tirades were a flash point for a minute or two a year ago. Which brings us to 2012, and an 11-0 season one triumph short of a national championship game bid, and Brian Kelly's modified approach: Know more, Mr. Nice Guy.

His players say he dines with them. His players say his door is open. His players say they can communicate with him, that he understands them better. He is the same coach who insists the playbook occupy a specific spot in each locker. Maybe he's nicer because he's nicer. Maybe he's nicer because the Irish mess up less. But a No. 1 ranking seems to be proof positive works.

"He just seems more relaxed," linebacker Manti Te'o said. "He seems more comfortable. He doesn't have to test us anymore. He knows what we can do. He knows how we're going to play, and he knows we're going to give everything we have.

"He doesn't have to do double practices in the fall to know how much heart this team has. He knows how much we have. He knows that we care about him, that we'll do anything for him. He has found comfort with that, that confidence in his team."

With a victory Saturday night at USC, Kelly enters into the rarefied Year 3 air certain Notre Dame coaches occupy: Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz all won a first national title in their respective third seasons, and Kelly would get his chance to match that.

It can be theorized that 11 victories would make any coach bubbly. But Kelly assumed, publicly, a painstakingly reserved posture since the preseason. That means he had contrived his approach before the first kickoff. That means he knew his players knew what he wanted. That means he knew this season screamed only for positive reinforcement.

"I've let my coaches coach, and I've tried to spend more time with our players on a day-to-day basis," Kelly said. "I think it was needed and necessary in our third year. The first couple of years I had to set a bar and a standard and an operation of the way we wanted things done on a day-to-day basis.

"Sometimes that means you have to be hard on some guys. This third year was a year where you knew our guys knew exactly what was expected, and it allowed me to spend more time with my players and build those relationships that are so important to having great morale."

Notre Dame players knew expectations. A tirade over an unkempt locker room early in Kelly's tenure set a tone, and details like locker placement of a helmet and playbook or uniform workout gear in winter, summer and fall were non-negotiable.

Tight end Tyler Eifert said coaches from Charlie Weis' regime warned that the new staff would "crack the whip." Still, it takes some getting used to. And the Irish initially did not take to Kelly's corrective measures.

"When guys wouldn't do the right thing — and there was a lot of the wrong thing being done by us the first couple of years — if he didn't like it, then he'd yell or something," receiver John Goodman said.

"A lot of these guys on our team don't take that as constructive criticism. It's more, 'Oh, this guy doesn't like me, why he is yelling at me?' And they'll go out and do something wrong again. When you approach guys positively, like he's doing now, then they take it a lot better."

The moment of great unease arrived after the loss to USC last season, when Kelly drove a rhetorical wedge between Weis holdovers and players he recruited. The team met, he apologized — and four straight victories followed.

Even if 2011 sputtered to an end with losses in the regular season finale and the Champs Sports Bowl, what threatened to be an undermining moment after USC instead was a detente that eventually became a group hug, maybe thanks to the coach looking on the bright side. This season soldered the whole thing.

"The biggest thing is," center Braxston Cave said, "we know he cares about every single guy."

When Kelly arrived at Notre Dame, he told his new players that he had been where they wanted to go. He asked them to stick to the plan, and he would show them the way.

Here they are, in a place none of them ever have been, at the virtual Hillary Step of their ascent. Brian Kelly has everything he needs to win, and he's winning, and winning just one more gilds this journey. Everyone is positive about that.

"They would tell you from Day 1 they were pretty clear on what the mission was," Kelly said. "As you develop closer relationships with your players, they start to go, 'Oh, I now know what you were talking about.' I think we're at that point now."